21 Days Without Sugar Experiment: that was hard! (part 1)

There seems to be tremendous interest right now in the health effects of sugar in our diets. Many people say that it is sugar, rather than fat, that is leading people to be overweight. Documentaries like "Fed Up" talk about both the addictive nature of sugar and how the idea of "eating better and exercising more" makes little sense when the environment makes it practically impossible to eliminate sugar additives from your diet in the first place. No matter how hard you try, the deck is simply stacked against you, so the thinking goes.
So 21 days ago I set ...

Nuun active hydration is a phenomenal product for marathon runners, triathletes and other long-distance athletes. It handles one of the most important elements of any athlete’s race-day needs: replenishing electrolytes and re-hydrating the body as you lose fluid through sweat.

Electrolytes are critical for the absorption of fluid and an important piece of the puzzle in both staving off dehydration and avoiding over-hydration.

If you’re thinking that Nuun sounds like just another fluid-replacement drink, then you need to see one very important difference. The key distinction is that most fluid-replacement drinks also contain energy (in the form of carbohydrates). The approach with Nuun is to separate your re-hydration from your energy replacement tools.

As an electrolyte-only product, you can keep drinking Nuun without risking the stomach upset that can come from drinking too much of an energy drink to re-hydrate.

Strategically this is important, because if, in a key race, you were using a combined energy/fluid-replacement drink and you developed stomach problems, you could then also lose your ability to re-hydrate. Without a hydration tool, you could be forced into dehydration and a potentially critical situation.

In addition to being a strategically smart product, Nuun is also an amazingly convenient product. Nuun comes in a tablet form, which is carried in a small tube. A tablet can be dropped into a bottle of plain water, turning it into a complete electrolyte solution for re-hydration.

I’ve used Nuun with my athletes for the better part of two years now and I have seen it bring people back from the brink of major hydration problems. It has a mild taste that works even when the stomach is in distress. Personally, I’ve used Nuun at hot races at both the Ironman and 50-mile trail running distance and it has worked wonders for me.

Now for those of you that are avid readers of my columns, you will know that I only occasionally review products. I do this on purpose, limiting my product reviews to those products that I find important for all of you readers. It is my hope that by singling out this one product today that all of you might it in your next long workout and use it in your races in 2008. I think it will really be a help to you.

Disclaimer: no compensation in cash, or of any other kind, was paid to secure this endorsement. There is no relationship between Running Advice and News and the company or companies that make or sell the product in this article.

One of the biggest issues that you’ll face in long distance races is managing your hydration. As the race gets longer, and you sweat for hours, you need to take in more and more fluid to fight off dehydration. Once you start getting dehydrated, you’ll start to experience a marked loss of performance, nausea, diarrhea, and muscle cramps.

And when you sweat you are losing more than just fluid – but electrolytes as well. Electrolytes are minerals that help you absorb fluids into your cells. Once you’ve lost enough of your electrolytes you stop being able to absorb plain water. This leads to a cycle in which you may be drinking tons of water and just peeing it straight out – not helping you at all with your hydration.

The answer is typically to use a sports drink, such as Gleukos, Gatorade, Gu2O, or Accelerade. These products provide you with fluid and electrolytes, but they also contain energy in the form of carbohydrates. That’s a good thing, because in a long race you’re working hard to replenish your energy stores. I’m a huge, huge, fan of Gleukos, because it is so easy on the stomach and does such a great job keeping me well fueled.

But, in a really long race, such as an Ironman triathlon, ultra-marathon, or adventure race, you’ll be taking in fluids and food for hours on end. What I’ve found tends to happen in these long races is that you start to have a difficult time tolerating all of the sweets and sugars in sport drinks and energy gels. Personally, my stomach and taste buds can only handle so much of the sweet stuff.

That’s where Nuun comes in.

Nuun is an electrolyte replacement product that does not contain any sugar. It’s essentially a non-energy electrolyte drink. Nuun (pronounced “noon”) is delivered in the form of a tablet that you drop into a bottle of plain water and (voila) it fizzes up and turns the water into a well-balanced electrolyte solution. You carry a small plastic tube of the tablets and can make gallons of the fluid with just one tube of twelve tablets.

Nuun is very helpful in fighting off not only dehydration, but over-hydration (or hyponatremia) as well. Because of its electrolyte properties, you can drink it without the risk of diluting the sodium content in your blood. This means that there is much less of a worry about over-hydrating, which can be as serious (if not more so) than dehydrating.

In my longest races – such as Ironman Arizona and my ultra marathons, I’ve used Nuun and I just love it. I can carry the Nuun tube in my hip pack and drop a tablet into my water bottle as I fill it at an aid station. This past weekend, running two marathons in San Diego, I used Nuun to keep myself well hydrated through 52.4 miles of running.

So Nuun is a product that I think you should highly consider trying out. It’s a great addition to put into your fuel bags as you head off to your next long race. Added to great products like Gluekos and Gu, it will help keep you performing optimally and keep the ugliness of dehydration at bay.

Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with the company that makes Nuun in any way and I have not been paid (or even asked) to provide a recommendation of this product. I just like the product that much.

Coach Joe

Running Advice and News with Coach Joe – a blog focused on marathon racing, training and motivation. Bookmark us at http://coachjoeenglish.wordpress.com or use your favorite RSS feed reader to get the latest news and articles. Running Wild is also now available on Facebook and My Space.